I especially like when he argued that "Nobody woke up one day and decided they'd like to have less rights with the digital content they buy" (in other words: copyright is dumb because it doesn't serve the customer's interest).
Copyright is supposed to protect everyone; writer, publisher, customer. DRM takes away the customer's (the person who is keeping the writer and publisher employed) right to resale. I can buy a physical book, read it, and give it away or sell it. That isn't possible with a DRM ebook. You can't buy DRMed content, you can only rent it.
He's not saying copyright is dumb, he's saying DRM is dumb.
he also believes that nobody should be allowed to sell his copyrighted material (beyond the first sale).
Citation? That would indeed be stupid if true, but I doubt the assertion.
Nintendo saw their sales drop in half in about a year.
It looks interesting, I loved Star Wreck, where can I get a legit copy of Iron Sky? TPB is for iffy stuff you might have wished you'd not have wasted your money on had you bought a pig in a poke.
What philosopher said to love your fellow man as you love yourself? What philosopher said if a man asks you to walk a mile with him, walk three? What philosopher was anti-materialist?
As to the "alleged to have existed," he was written about by ancient Roman historians who lived in the same timeframe, look it up. His existence was documented.
Reproduction is useless and futile as well; everything that has a beginning has an end, including life itself.
The religious are materialists as well as anyone else might be, just look how many of them are in the Republican party wanting to deny poor people help as it will affect their own income.
Does calling yourself Christian make you one? The Republicans you mention love money and power above all else and are acting contrary to everything Christ taught. "No man can serve two masters, he will love one and hate the other" and "the love of money is the root of all evil."
Jesus spoke directly against conservatives (he was especially harsh on lawyers), which is why he was executed. Jesus was a liberal, the High Priest was a conservative.
"You must not touch me, lest you turn to stone," Rority repllied sadly, wishing he had his stratodoober so he could get stoned. He quickly programmed the nobots that constituted his shield to change the tissues of the attackers' flesh to calcium; not the amounts needed for muscles to work, but solid calcium. Skin, as well. The baliffs reached out to grab him, and at the first touch of the nobots that ensheathed Rority apparently became clothed statues, their brains unchanged but dying from lack of oxygen. It would not have been a pleasant death. "Serves the bastards right", Rority thought. But he had to stay true to character.
"You have had pestilence, violence, famine, and death these past three years. You have been visited by those four horses, and are paying and will continue pay for your sins for the rest of your natural lives. You will then die, dead forever, and the dead shall live."
"Bullshiit!" shouted one man. "Four horses, God, it's all bullshit. There is no god, God damn it!"
"Please forgive us!" screamed another man, falling on his knees.
"It is too late. You have already been judged" Rority replied sadly.
"But I was a Catholic! I went to church every Sunday! I went to confession!"
"The sins you confessed to were not the sins you were judged for. The sins all of you committed were the same sin -- the sin of blasphemy. All of you worshiped false gods."
"No! I never..."
"The god you worshiped, what you loved more than anything, was money. You bribed judges, policemen, government officials. You threw innocent people out of their homes, let them go hungry and without medical care, all so you could live a lavish lifestyle. You put people in prison for growing a plant, and by the way one of my favorite plants, too. You executed men for murders that you knew were framed for, just to obtain advancement in your occupations. You waged terrible wars in the name of God for your own selfish ends." Rority hated playing this part, although these men did deserve it, having caused untold misery to their fellow man in the pursuit of ever more wealth. He had to do it, of course, as it was the only explanation for events that were to unfold that these people would understand.
When I was in Thailand in the Air Force, Bhuddism got me to start studying the world's religions, nothing I ran across indicated that Hinduism (which Bhuddism is an offshoot of) was like that.
I'm a Christian, and have never once been in a Christian church that was like that. I'm not sure where your misinformation about Christianity comes from. Christianity is about forgiveness.
Having an invisible friend that you know not only believes in you but genuinely loves you is a powerful thing.
Only invisible to the willfully (perhaps not so willfully) blind.
I'd be very interested to know if people with human friends who love and believe in them enjoy the similar success.
From what I've seen, nobody gets out of their personal mental hell without a human support system, which very often includes religion.
An example is my friend Amy, who suffers from several mental illnesses. Her therapists tell her she should write an autobiography and she's asked me to write it, it will probably be my next book after Nobots is finished.
Yes it's one study. Where was this concern when it was one study showing correlation between religious belief and being an idiot, or having higher chance of teen pregnancy or promiscuity, or believing in UFOs?
Citations? I'd love to see those studies. However, I completely agree with "this turnabout is fun if for no other reason than some detractors of religion are just nonsentient goobers latching onto anything to hate another group, just like any other meme regurgitator in support of their overmeme , thus missing the bigger picture." That was insightful.
"Reality" is unknowable. The Matrix, anyone? All you have to judge by is your senses. It's not possible to know what reality is.
Same old song, Just a drop of water in an endless sea All we do Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see. Dust in the wind; All we are is dust in the wind.
Now don't hang on. Nothin' last forever but the earth and sky. It slips away And all your money won't another minute buy. Dust in the wind All we are is dust in the wind.
Nothing you ever do will have any effect whatever in geological time. What is the purpose of life? Without God, it has no purpose whatever, which explains this study's findings.
Yes, evil men who don't care about or even believe in God do in fact use religion for their own selfish ends. It's a sad fact of life.
Not all religions are like that. Hindus, Bhuddists, and most Christianity isn't. But beware of people like Pat Robertson. Never trust a preacher who wears a suit and tie.
Whether or not you believe in God, what Jesus taught made a lot of sense. If everyone acted like he taught, the world would be a wonderful place. Damned hard to do though, it isn't easy loving people who fuck you over. But imagine what the world would be like if everyone loved their enemies as much as they loved themselves. No more war, no more poverty, no more suffering.
As Cory Doctorow points out, nobody ever lost a dime from piracy but many artists have starved from obscurity. He credits his putting his books online for free as the reason he's a best seller.
Put your films on bittorrent and let people know. Free sells.
Seconded. I'm torrenting half a dozen files right now, mostly Linux distros, and my first book (only available at the pirate bay; I put it there myself).
About five years ago I had a cheap ($100) feature phone, my daughter had a "smartphone" (pre-iPhone, which is what she uses now). I took a bunch of pictures and movies at the St Patrick's day parade and sent them to her with mine, and it trashed her phone. Locked it up tight, she had to take the battery out to make it work.
It wiped out all her contacts, messages, everything. If you've never had to reboot a phone, you're lucky and its developers were more talented than most commercial programmers. "Rush it out the door, we'll patch it later." I've had to take the battery out of a win 7 notebook that had locked up. So a computerized, unbootable device is not for me.
You guys are all of the incredibly naive assumption that intelligent aliens will have anything in common with us at all, an example is Terry Bison's excellent short story They're made out of meat. (full text at the link)
A thousand years more advanced? How about ten million years more advanced? That's mine but another example of how we have no clue whatever (BTW, I'm posting the last chapter tomorrow). Ten million years is a small fraction of the thirteen billion plus the universe has existed.
The bottom line, though is that we have no idea. There's no proof, or even any indication, that Earth isn't the first planet in the galaxy and maybe even the universe (unlikely as that seems to me) to host life. Mars was once hospitable to life, as our robots have found, but there is no indication it ever started there.
Great topic for discussion, though. Personally, I think they exist or did exist or will exist, but I really doubt we'll meet them.
Because the GP probably saw the item and said "Great!" until he saw that it was missing a feature that is absolutely necessary for him.
Likewise, a non-removable battery is a non-starter for me. I think that's a BIG mistake; they're not Apple and don't have a reality distortion field and a cult built around them like Apple has.
Slashdot Mirror
I especially like when he argued that "Nobody woke up one day and decided they'd like to have less rights with the digital content they buy" (in other words: copyright is dumb because it doesn't serve the customer's interest).
Copyright is supposed to protect everyone; writer, publisher, customer. DRM takes away the customer's (the person who is keeping the writer and publisher employed) right to resale. I can buy a physical book, read it, and give it away or sell it. That isn't possible with a DRM ebook. You can't buy DRMed content, you can only rent it.
He's not saying copyright is dumb, he's saying DRM is dumb.
he also believes that nobody should be allowed to sell his copyrighted material (beyond the first sale).
Citation? That would indeed be stupid if true, but I doubt the assertion.
Nintendo saw their sales drop in half in about a year.
Correlation does not imply causation.
Me, too. The necktie is a symbol of wealth. It's Satan's leash.
I can get NetFlix on Linux now?
The universe is a work of art, we're here to enjoy it.
Why would Rome want to fabricate a Jewish martyr? That makes no sense at all.
It looks interesting, I loved Star Wreck, where can I get a legit copy of Iron Sky? TPB is for iffy stuff you might have wished you'd not have wasted your money on had you bought a pig in a poke.
What philosopher said to love your fellow man as you love yourself? What philosopher said if a man asks you to walk a mile with him, walk three? What philosopher was anti-materialist?
As to the "alleged to have existed," he was written about by ancient Roman historians who lived in the same timeframe, look it up. His existence was documented.
Reproduction is useless and futile as well; everything that has a beginning has an end, including life itself.
The religious are materialists as well as anyone else might be, just look how many of them are in the Republican party wanting to deny poor people help as it will affect their own income.
Does calling yourself Christian make you one? The Republicans you mention love money and power above all else and are acting contrary to everything Christ taught. "No man can serve two masters, he will love one and hate the other" and "the love of money is the root of all evil."
Jesus spoke directly against conservatives (he was especially harsh on lawyers), which is why he was executed. Jesus was a liberal, the High Priest was a conservative.
Here's a snippet of some fiction I wrote:
That's out of context. He was referring to the judgement that comes in the next world.
When I was in Thailand in the Air Force, Bhuddism got me to start studying the world's religions, nothing I ran across indicated that Hinduism (which Bhuddism is an offshoot of) was like that.
I'm a Christian, and have never once been in a Christian church that was like that. I'm not sure where your misinformation about Christianity comes from. Christianity is about forgiveness.
Having an invisible friend that you know not only believes in you but genuinely loves you is a powerful thing.
Only invisible to the willfully (perhaps not so willfully) blind.
I'd be very interested to know if people with human friends who love and believe in them enjoy the similar success.
From what I've seen, nobody gets out of their personal mental hell without a human support system, which very often includes religion.
An example is my friend Amy, who suffers from several mental illnesses. Her therapists tell her she should write an autobiography and she's asked me to write it, it will probably be my next book after Nobots is finished.
Yes it's one study. Where was this concern when it was one study showing correlation between religious belief and being an idiot, or having higher chance of teen pregnancy or promiscuity, or believing in UFOs?
Citations? I'd love to see those studies. However, I completely agree with "this turnabout is fun if for no other reason than some detractors of religion are just nonsentient goobers latching onto anything to hate another group, just like any other meme regurgitator in support of their overmeme , thus missing the bigger picture." That was insightful.
Once you've died, dying isn't scary at all.
Religion is a distraction from reality
"Reality" is unknowable. The Matrix, anyone? All you have to judge by is your senses. It's not possible to know what reality is.
Same old song, Just a drop of water in an endless sea All we do Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see. Dust in the wind; All we are is dust in the wind.
Now don't hang on. Nothin' last forever but the earth and sky. It slips away And all your money won't another minute buy. Dust in the wind All we are is dust in the wind.
Nothing you ever do will have any effect whatever in geological time. What is the purpose of life? Without God, it has no purpose whatever, which explains this study's findings.
I pity materialists.
Religions generally use fear to control.
Yes, evil men who don't care about or even believe in God do in fact use religion for their own selfish ends. It's a sad fact of life.
Not all religions are like that. Hindus, Bhuddists, and most Christianity isn't. But beware of people like Pat Robertson. Never trust a preacher who wears a suit and tie.
Whether or not you believe in God, what Jesus taught made a lot of sense. If everyone acted like he taught, the world would be a wonderful place. Damned hard to do though, it isn't easy loving people who fuck you over. But imagine what the world would be like if everyone loved their enemies as much as they loved themselves. No more war, no more poverty, no more suffering.
As Cory Doctorow points out, nobody ever lost a dime from piracy but many artists have starved from obscurity. He credits his putting his books online for free as the reason he's a best seller.
Put your films on bittorrent and let people know. Free sells.
Seconded. I'm torrenting half a dozen files right now, mostly Linux distros, and my first book (only available at the pirate bay; I put it there myself).
How long before a talented bunch of individuals are capable of making high quality movies without the industries backing.
What? You haven't seen Star Wreck? Hilarious and better than half the dreck from hollywood. And it's a free download! DUDE!!!!
We wan t space opera full of hot female astronauts!
Oh, hell, I forgot hot female astronauts, DOH! How about a hot female Martian?
Crap, now you have me searching my bookshelves, I know I have that...
I expect virtually everything mined off planet will actually be used for off planet construction and manufacturing, including gold.
I think that's the whole idea.
About five years ago I had a cheap ($100) feature phone, my daughter had a "smartphone" (pre-iPhone, which is what she uses now). I took a bunch of pictures and movies at the St Patrick's day parade and sent them to her with mine, and it trashed her phone. Locked it up tight, she had to take the battery out to make it work.
It wiped out all her contacts, messages, everything. If you've never had to reboot a phone, you're lucky and its developers were more talented than most commercial programmers. "Rush it out the door, we'll patch it later." I've had to take the battery out of a win 7 notebook that had locked up. So a computerized, unbootable device is not for me.
You guys are all of the incredibly naive assumption that intelligent aliens will have anything in common with us at all, an example is Terry Bison's excellent short story They're made out of meat. (full text at the link)
A thousand years more advanced? How about ten million years more advanced? That's mine but another example of how we have no clue whatever (BTW, I'm posting the last chapter tomorrow). Ten million years is a small fraction of the thirteen billion plus the universe has existed.
The bottom line, though is that we have no idea. There's no proof, or even any indication, that Earth isn't the first planet in the galaxy and maybe even the universe (unlikely as that seems to me) to host life. Mars was once hospitable to life, as our robots have found, but there is no indication it ever started there.
Great topic for discussion, though. Personally, I think they exist or did exist or will exist, but I really doubt we'll meet them.
Because the GP probably saw the item and said "Great!" until he saw that it was missing a feature that is absolutely necessary for him.
Likewise, a non-removable battery is a non-starter for me. I think that's a BIG mistake; they're not Apple and don't have a reality distortion field and a cult built around them like Apple has.
Horses and dogs are mammals, but dogs aren't horses. Light and radio waves are EMF, but light isn't radio waves.